


The Blanket Fort

by Kamemor



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Science Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 21:37:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6627451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamemor/pseuds/Kamemor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jesse is not coping very well with being stranded on another Earth, so Cisco institutes the patented Cisco Ramon Cheer Up a Sad Friend strategy. Which, naturally, involves building a blanket fort and watching funny movies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Blanket Fort

**Author's Note:**

> Basically I've been rooting for a Cisco and Jesse friendship since even before Jesse was on Earth-1 so I wanted to write something cute with the two of them. And also Harry, because he's much more of a softy than he lets on, especially when it comes to Jesse.

Cisco knocked on the doorframe of Harry and Jesse’s room.

“Hey, Harry, you there? I need to ask you something.” When he didn’t get a response, he stuck his head around the door just in case Harry had headphones on or something. What he saw instead was Jesse, sitting on her bed staring down at her hands. “Oh, sorry, Jesse, I didn’t realise you were in here.”

“That’s okay,” she said quietly, sniffing slightly. Cisco frowned and took a step into the room.

“Are you okay?” he asked, concerned. Jesse didn’t answer, but the redness in her eyes and the tears on her cheeks when she turned to look up at Cisco were answer enough. “Hey, hey, you want me to get your dad?” he said, gently. Jesse shook her head emphatically, and Cisco had to resist rolling his eyes at himself. Of course Harry wouldn’t be much help. Discounting the five hundred different variations on anger and annoyance that he exhibited on a regular basis, the man had the emotional range of a teaspoon. “Okay, fair point. Is there anything more useful I can get you? A glass of water, candy…?”

“Could you… could you maybe stay for a bit?” Jesse asked, her voice hitching in a slight sob. “I could use the company.”

“Of course,” said Cisco. He crossed the room and sat down on the bed next to Jesse. He thought about saying something, but he didn’t really know Jesse well enough yet to know quite what to say in the first place. Just sitting there with her was probably the best thing that he could do.

After a minute or two, to Cisco’s great surprise, Jesse shuffled a bit closer to him and leant her head against his shoulder. He put an arm around her automatically, and then turned it into a proper hug when she started crying softly into his t-shirt. Poor kid, he thought to himself. She’s so cut off from everyone she cares about that her best choice for emotional support is someone she hardly knows. Not that he minded being that person, of course. Never let it be said that Cisco Ramon turned his back on someone who needed a friend.

* * *

 They sat like that for a long while, until Jesse sniffed, wiped her eyes, and slowly sat up straight again. Cisco let his arm drop from around her shoulders, and smiled gently at her.

“Thanks, Cisco,” she said, her voice soft from crying.

“Hey, any time.” Jesse smiled at that; a small smile, but a genuine one. “So, you wanna talk about it? Or would you rather do something fun and distracting to cheer yourself up?” Jesse quirked her mouth and furrowed her eyebrows slightly as she thought about it.

“Fun and distracting sounds good,” she concluded. “But, um, maybe with the option to talk about it later?” Cisco grinned, and nodded.

“Fun and distracting it is. Now, I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of the patented Cisco Ramon Cheer Up a Sad Friend strategy, have you?” Jesse shook her head. “Well, I’ll give you a hint: it involves watching silly movies and, wait for it… blanket forts.” Jesse giggled.

“Can we really get away with building a blanket fort right in the middle of STAR Labs?”

“Well, since Barry technically owns the place, I don’t see why not.” Cisco grinned broadly and gestured around the room. “Besides, we’ve got pretty much everything we need right here. So, what do you say, Jesse Wells? You want to build a blanket fort?”

“I would say, Cisco Ramon, that that sound like a great idea,” said Jesse, a matching grin spreading across her face.

* * *

The next half an hour was spent in an enthusiastic frenzy of construction. Although they were careful to move anything breakable far out of the way, Cisco and Jesse pretty much turned the room upside down. Shifting the mattresses onto the floor, they flipped the camp beds on their sides to make the walls of their fort. Then it was simply a matter of shifting some of the other furniture around to fill the gaps and draping sheets and blankets everywhere. Between Cisco’s engineering expertise and Jesse’s equally clever building strategies, in what seemed like no time at all they had constructed a very respectable blanket fort. They even took a quick trip to one of the long abandoned common rooms and swiped a whole bunch of chair cushions from under the plastic sheeting they’d been covered in since the days when STAR Labs had had more than half a dozen people working there.

“ _Shhhh_ ”, Cisco whispered, stifling a giggle as they snuck past the Cortex (which they were pretty certain would be unoccupied at this time in the evening, but it never hurt to be cautious) with armfulls of cushions. Jesse shook with silent peals of laughter, nearly dropping hers as they dashed to the elevator at the end of the corridor.

When they made it back to Jesse and Harry’s room, Cisco left Jesse to arrange the mountain of pillows and cushions inside the fort while he tracked down a few more supplies. Specifically, a suitably large monitor for watching movies on, and the excessively large quantity of candy and snacks he kept stashed away in his workroom for just this purpose. Within another ten minutes, they were happily ensconced in the blanket fort, snacks in hand, trying to decide on what to watch.

“Okay, so, after your dad ranted for about half an hour about the ending of _Inception_ being different on your Earth, I figure we’re probably better off watching something you’ve never seen before.” Jesse snorted.

“I’d forgotten that Dad had strong opinions about _Inception_. But watching something new sounds good to me. Did you have anything in mind?” Cisco scrolled down through the list of films and paused on a familiar title card.

“ _Mean Girls_?” Jesse shook her head.

“Seen it already.”

“Ooh, how about _Scot Pilgrim vs The World_?”

“Nope, seen that one too.”

“Hmm. You’re making this difficult.” Cisco scrolled on, until... “Ah-ha! How about _Hot Fuzz_?” Jesse shook her head, curious.

“I don’t know that one. What’s it about?”

“It’s about this British cop, played by Simon Pegg, who ends up reassigned to a really tiny countryside village, and it makes fun of pretty much every single cop movie ever. It’s _really_ funny.”

“Go for it,” said Jesse, reaching over for the popcorn. Cisco suddenly had a realisation.

“Wait a minute. You’re okay with violent movies, right? Because it’s funny violence, but this one gets kinda gory near the end.”

“Sure,” said Jesse. “Movie violence never bothered me. Besides, Dad and I watched _Die Hard_ when I was like, ten. I’m used to it.”

“Fair enough,” said Cisco, nodding. “Although why am I not surprised that Harry likes _Die Hard_?”

“You should hear his John McClane impression.” Cisco guffawed.

“He does a John McClane impression? Now that, I _have_ to see.” Jesse bumped him with her shoulder and smiled.

“Put the movie on, already, or I’ll have finished all the popcorn.”

“Oh no, you won’t”, said Cisco, snagging a large handful for himself. But he set the movie running as well, and settled back onto the pile of cushions as the familiar logos started to appear on the screen. He glanced over at Jesse and, although her eyes were still a little red, was pleased to see that she looked genuinely much happier than she had been when he’d walked in on her earlier. He smiled to himself. Chalk one up for the blanket fort strategy.

* * *

Just over two hours later, the credits were rolling and Cisco and Jesse were enthusiastically discussing the movie.

“That was brilliant!” said Jesse. Cisco bowed as best he could while sat down and in a blanket fort.

“Thank you, thank you. Never let it be said that I don’t know how to pick a good movie.”

“Oh, god, the bit where all the little old ladies pull out guns,” Jesse giggled. “And the running gag with the swan…” Cisco pointed into the distance and pulled a surprised face.

“Swan!” he exclaimed, doing his best Simon Pegg expression. Jesse dissolved into laughter, and Cisco grinned. “I still say the best line is ‘ _You wanna be a big cop in a small town? Fuck off up the model village!_ ’”

“Oh my god, yes.”

They sat like that for another few minutes, quoting their favourite lines back and forth until they heard footsteps and an unmistakable gruff voice.

“What are you two doing?”

* * *

Harry had been having a frustrating evening. Ever since he’d spent some time in one of the Pipeline cells himself, he’d had a few ideas for improvements, but nothing had been going according to plan. First he’d dropped a screwdriver head first onto the back of his hand, then he’d hit his head on the doors, and to cap it all off the improvements he’d been making were proving to be much less efficient than he’d thought they would be.

Deciding that the upgrades were a lost cause for the evening, he sighed, and rubbed the ache on the side of his head with his uninjured hand. His head spun slightly as he stood up, which was strange because he definitely hadn’t hit his head hard enough to cause a concussion. Then he remembered that he hadn’t eaten for quite some time. He should probably do something about that, but food required effort that he really didn’t feel like expending.

Leaving his toolkit where it was (he’d be working on this again tomorrow, so there was no point tidying up), he headed out of the Pipeline and wandered the familiar path back to the room he now shared with Jesse. He wondered what she’d been up to for the evening, especially since she’d seemed very quiet when he last saw her. He frowned. Harry had known it would take Jesse a while to adjust to living on a different Earth, and he’d thought she’d made a start on that, but the last few days she’d been slipping back into the same mood she’d been in just after she’d been rescued. Maybe he should reconsider letting her spend time outside of STAR Labs…

By this point, he had almost reached their room. Suddenly, he realised that he could hear voices floating down the hall. That was definitely Jesse’s laugh, and that other voice sounded like Cisco, which was a surprise. He hadn’t noticed them spending much time together so far, but Jesse finding someone to hang out with could only be a good thing. However, when he rounded the doorway and saw the state of their room, he started to reconsider that thought.

“What are you two doing?” he asked, staring at the mess that used to be his bedroom. The beds had been flipped on their sides and, along with most of the other furniture, now appeared to form the main structure of a (rather impressive, he reluctantly admitted) blanket fort. As he watched, the blanket that was draped over the front was pulled aside from the inside, revealing a slightly sheepish looking Jesse and Cisco.

“Uh, hey, Dad!” said Jesse, trying to sound innocent. “We, um, built a blanket fort!”

“I can see that,” said Harry, putting his hands on his hips. “And what, exactly, are you doing in that blanket fort?” Jesse looked suddenly mortified, but Cisco grinned brightly.

“Watching movies!” He shifted the blanket further over so that Harry could see the monitor they had set up. He also spotted the rather large mountain of assorted snack foods and rolled his eyes.

“Of course you are.”

“Yeah,” said Jesse, the slight flush of embarrassment disappearing from her face. “Cisco showed me this great movie called _Hot Fuzz_ . You’d love it, Dad, there was all sorts of gratuitous violence, and it was _really_ funny, and…” Jesse started babbling about the movie, and Harry couldn’t help but smile. This was the happiest that he’d seen her in days, and it was very welcome. He glanced over at Cisco, raised an eyebrow, and gestured inquiringly at the blanket fort. It took a second or two, but Cisco’s face lit up when he realised what Harry was asking. Jesse finally tailed off as Cisco poked her in the shoulder.

“Hey, Jesse, do you think there’s room for one more in here?” Jesse grinned broadly.

“Definitely! Hey, Dad, you want to join us?” Harry made a show of being uncertain.

“I don’t know, honey...”

“Oh, come on, you know you want to!” He sighed exaggeratedly.

“Fine, then, if I must.” He shrugged his jacket off and crouched down. “So, how does one enter this ridiculous construction?”

“Ah,” said Cisco, pointing at Harry’s feet. “No boots in the blanket fort.” Jesse giggled.

“I really don’t think we want Dad to take his shoes off.”

“Hey!” complained Harry, but there was no heat to it. He sat down on the floor and started unlacing his boots, while Jesse and Cisco rearranged the mound of cushions to allow for an extra occupant.

Eventually, with a bit of undignified manoeuvring on Harry’s part, all three of them were comfortably situated within the confines of the blanket fort. Jesse was in the middle, with Cisco to her left and Harry to her right. Unfortunately for Harry, this put the snacks two people away from him and under Cisco’s control.

“Ramon, could you pass the popcorn?” Jesse poked him in the ribs.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“No surnames in the blanket fort.”

“This place sure has a lot of rules,” he grumbled, half under his breath but loud enough that the other two both heard it and laughed. “Fine. _Cisco_ , could you pass the popcorn?” Cisco gave him a facetious grin.

“I don’t know, can I?” Harry threw a pillow at his head. “Alright, alright, have the popcorn!” Cisco pitched an unopened bag of microwave popcorn at Harry’s chest. “So, what’s the next movie going to be?”

“I trust your judgement, Cisco” said Jesse, smiling.

“I don’t,” said Harry, also smiling.

“Hush, you. Okay, so, I remember from a previous conversation that Earth 2 doesn’t have Monty Python, so boy are you two in for a treat…” 

* * *

The next morning, Caitlin arrived at STAR Labs as early as she usually did. When she noticed that Cisco’s jacket was still hanging on the back of one of the chairs in the Cortex, she realised that he hadn’t gone home the night before. She sighed. Oh, Cisco. This was far from the first time she’d come in to work to find him still there, usually asleep sprawled across a workbench.

However, Cisco wasn’t in any of his usual spots. Caitlin was starting to wonder if he’d gone home after all and just forgotten about his jacket, when she spotted a light coming from further down the corridor in the direction of Harry and Jesse’s room. If they were up already, maybe they’d seen him.

But, when Caitlin knocked gently on the door, she got no answer. Curious, she pushed it open slightly and was met with an unexpected sight: there was a blanket fort slightly collapsed in the middle of the room and, asleep in the pile of cushions and blankets, were Harry, Jesse and Cisco. Cisco was sprawled on his back at one side of the fort. He’d knocked his blanket off, and Caitlin could see that he was still wearing the same clothes he’d been in the previous day. The same was true of Jesse and Harry, who were curled in the centre of the pile and stretched out full length at the other side respectively. She stifled a giggle. From the TV screen and the snack food wrappers scattered all over the place, she could tell exactly what had happened the previous night. They’d stayed up late watching movies, only to fall asleep exactly where they were.

Quietly, so as not to wake any of them, Caitlin backed out of the room and closed the door. But not before she took her phone out and snapped a few pictures. Because who would believe her if she didn’t?


End file.
